No alternative but to reduce risk of military escalation in eastern Ukraine, say OSCE Chair’s Special Representative Sajdik and Chief Monitor Apakan

VIENNA, 5 April 2017 – There is no alternative but to reduce the risk of a military escalation and find a way to constructively implement the Minsk agreements, said the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office’s Special Representative to the Trilateral Contact Group, Martin Sajdik, and the Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine, Ertugrul Apakan, in their addresses to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna today.

Special Representative Sajdik said that since the start of this year, the SMM has reported the advancement of military positions even closer to one another, further into the so-called grey zone, affecting critical civilian infrastructure. “This year alone, the station, which provides water to 345,000 people, has already experienced 36 days of shutdown due to shelling.”

“We must break the dreadful cycle of shelling, repair works, renewed shelling, renewed repair works. We will further focus on the creation of ‘safe zones’ around critical infrastructure,” said Sajdik.

Chief Monitor Apakan said that the security situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions remains volatile and tense. “Though the SMM recorded a noticeable reduction in the number of ceasefire violations last weekend following a recommitment to the ceasefire on 29 March, their number has already increased.”

“The key role of the SMM is to build and maintain trust. I am deeply concerned about the recent incidents threatening the SMM monitors,” Apakan said. He underlined that the purpose of the SMM’s monitoring is not just to establish facts: “It is to verify compliance or non-compliance. But without access, the SMM cannot verify, and the sides have no confidence in the process.”

Apakan concluded by calling on the sides to ensure the safety and security of the SMM monitors.

The Austrian Chairmanship called this meeting because of recent negative developments in eastern Ukraine, pointing out hundreds, sometimes thousands, of ceasefire violations every day. Civilian monitors are being targeted like never before. As the Chairperson-in-Office Sebastian Kurz witnessed in early January, people in eastern Ukraine are suffering through the trauma of war.

The Chairmanship called on a durable cease-fire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons, to prevent the risk of a dangerous, downward spiral.

Participating States were briefed by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) about the situation of the affected population in Donbas.